Abstract

In past research on criminal stereotypes, individuals of different races have been stereotyped as being more likely to commit certain types of crimes. In this article, we draw on the “bad is Black” heuristic and identify a fundamental underlying dimension explaining such divergence: offenses deemed immoral were associated with Black individuals, while those deemed wrong but not necessarily immoral were associated with White individuals. Our evidence came from a data-driven method that is novel to applied legal psychological research—reverse correlation to produce classification images—and that enabled us to visualize lay persons’ criminal stereotypes. We interpreted this theoretical advance through the lens of our legal institutional context, exploring applications and implications of the finding.

摘要

在过去关于犯罪刻板印象的研究中，不同种族的人被刻板印象为更有可能犯下某些类型的犯罪。在本文中，我们借鉴了“坏就是黑人”的启发式方法，并确定了解释这种分歧的一个基本潜在维度：被认为不道德的罪行与黑人有关，而那些被认为是错误但不一定不道德的罪行则与白人有关。我们的证据来自一种数据驱动的方法，该方法对应用法律心理学研究而言是新颖的——反向相关以生成分类图像——并使我们能够将非专业人士的犯罪刻板印象形象化。我们通过我们的法律制度背景来解释这一理论进步，探索该发现的应用和影响。